Review: Studio's CHIMERICA is Big as a Continent

Twenty-six years ago, the day after thousands of soldiers in China's so called People's Liberation Army cleared Tiananmen Square, killing what could have been thousands of students who had been protesting there, a lone man with plastic grocery bags stood in front of a line of advancing tanks there.

His single act of defiance, caught by a handful of foreign journalists overlooking the square in a hotel nearby, created an indelible image of the unquenchable spirit of one standing against the crushing power of the state.

It also created a mystery: Who was this man?

It's led to some interesting investigations and an absorbing 2006 British documentary that later played on "Frontline." It also animates Lucy Kirkwood's ambitious CHIMERICA, the new play at Studio Theatre that goes beyond the mystery to make a number of points about the superpowers in the current day - or at least 2012, when this play was set.

Ron Menzel plays Joe, a fictional New York Times photographer who grabbed the shot, then hid his film in a toilet tank to keep it from officials. More than 20 years later, he's still so consumed by the event, he tries to find out where the tank man is or if he is even still alive.

Oddly, he seems to be the only one in the world to wonder this, and he doesn't bother talking to anybody else who had ever investigated it, but instead he runs into an old interpreter of his in Beijing (Rob Yang) and begins his search.

This reignites his friend's own memories of the square and the uprisings that summer, so that two big narratives are started. Plus there is a love interest with a marketing expert, commentary on the state of journalism, some flashes of political interceedings, and the continued blind advance of Chinese soldiers.

Like the mouthful of its title, CHIMERICA is an uncomfortable melding of at least two separate dramas, such that the whole adds up to about three hours and 15 minutes at the theater, with 38 scenes and 45 characters.

There is doubtlessly a strong narrative in there somewhere, but ho boy does this thing need to be whittled down. Whatever strength there is in what Kirkwood is saying is marred by the ill will of way overstaying its welcome.

Credit Studio for bringing in CHIMERICA during the Women's Voices Theater Festival (though it is not its official contribution). If it's not a world premiere, at least it's a U.S. one; it is said to have been a critical hit in London, where the stereotypes about the superpowers were undoubtedly appreciated.

Much of the sharp production at Studio is served in speeding things up, particularly in the nifty spinning segments of the floor in Blythe R.D. Guinlan's nifty set, a two floor design with paper shades that easily allows shifting between the continents and decades as needed. Characters even share individual props for their own purposes. The projections of Zachary G. Borovay are arresting and set the dozens of scenes.

David Muse's direction tries to keep things moving as well, though in the final acts, pushing past the third hour, characters tend to slow down their actions with an abundance of pauses, as if to convey their own contemplation of events.

It's great to see a strong Asian cast on stage, though the play is still told through the eyes of the Western man trying to unravel their mystery. It's also great to hear what I will assume is actual Chinese spoken as well, some of which gets subtitles on an edge of the stage. Others scenes just start in Chinese and go into English to make it easier on the audience. (Zach Campion is dialect coach; Dr. Yuan Liu is translation and dialect consultant).

The cast is full of standouts, from Lee Sellars as a cynical journalist to Tessa Klein as the market analyst. Among the cast making their mark in any one of their multiple roles are Julie-Ann Elliot, Jordan Barbour,Jade Wu and Diana Oh.

I also appreciated Paul Morella's work quite a lot - but maybe because he played an editor. His part in the notion that the Times would drop its political coverage for appeasement of a Chinese company is a little hard to swallow though. And there may be one or two too many twists at the end than the play actually needs.

Substantially written before the 2008 U.S. election, but set before the 2012 one, Hillary Clinton's name is mentioned more than you would have expected. The ham-handed depiction of the Chinese, however, is often more straight out of Donald Trump.

Still, so much has happened just in the last few weeks, from an explosion in Tianjin to a melt down on Chinese markets, that the events mentioned in CHIMERICA seem a bit dated. (I could also say she doesn't make use of the 2008 Olympics in China, but wouldn't want to suggest another added subplot).

CHIMERICA is the kind of play brave enough to seriously dwell on complex contemporary events; it only needs the discipline of focus to ratchet its impact.

CHIMERICA continues through Oct. 18 at Studio Theatre, 1501 14th St NW. Tickets at 202-332-3300 or online.

Photo: Ron Menzel and Rob Yang in CHIMERICA at Studio Theatre. Photo: Igor Dmitry.

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